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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29994468">A Bullet is Worth a Thousand Words</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas'>Celticas</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of SHIELD - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, MTH2020, Post AoS Season 3, Post Captain America: Winter Soldier, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:00:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29994468</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy was on the run from everything and everyone she knew. Trying to keep the death that dogged her steps from touching anyone else that she loved.<br/>Bucky was on the run from everything and everyone he knew. Trying to wipe the blood from his past out with the blood of the people who deserved it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Skye| Daisy Johnson/ James "Bucky" Barnes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>95</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Marvel Trumps Hate 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/gifts">Jaune_Chat</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Some days he didn’t know who he was. Most days he didn’t know who he was. He was nothing. An empty shell of a person who didn’t even know he had to eat or move to keep himself alive. There had always been someone to tell him to move, to eat, to kill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t mind those days. There was no sense memory of blood dripping from his hands and clogging his nose on those days. There was no ghost of screams, and whimpering, and the silence of the dead to haunt his steps. There was no best friend, no brother, searching for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Today wasn’t one of those days. It was a day of rage and guilt that ate at him. That demanded satisfaction from those who had hurt him and made him hurt others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Winter Soldier was hunting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>= + =</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daisy crouched on the burning rooftop. She was so over burning rooftopsor dark stinking alleys. Why couldn’t the Watchdogs meet in a nice hipster coffee shop where she could blend in with an espresso and a book? She still dreamt of the ratty dinner she had first met Mike in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knew it wasn’t to be though. Sunburn and questionable smells were all she had to look forward to. A part of her twinged deep inside, she didn’t really deserve anything else did she? She was Death.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Movement below pulled her from her maudlin thoughts. Two masked men, she guessed at their gender from their size and the way they walked, came through a door on the side of the warehouse. Guns in hand they did a sweep of the area. Never once looking up, more fool them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waiting until they went back inside, she finally made her move. Taking a running start, she shot pulses out of her hands and threw herself off the roof. Tumbling across a different stretch of hot tar roofing, she was back on her feet and running for the door into the Watchdogs’ warehouse before the dust from her passing had reached its height.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The men inside only had a second’s warning of her approach. Crashing through the door, she blindly threw out her hands, waves of vibration booming out into the large space, sending men, furniture, and boxes flying. In the chaos, she was able to pin-point her attack. There were seven men, the two she had seen, four other thugs that were completely interchangeable, and one better dressed one. She guessed he was the ringleader of this little group of scum.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Targeting the henchmen first, with three short sharp blasts, she knocked them into the walls. From the vibrations they were giving off, five of them were out cold and the sixth was still awake, groaning, but not going anywhere soon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mr Daly, you’ve been a very bad boy.” She stalked towards him, pulling everything thing she had ever learnt from May as an invisible cloak around her. Intimidation rolling off her in waves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shrunk back. “Quake.” She had been disrupting their organisation enough that she had developed a bit of a reputation. It wasn’t a good one. It also wasn’t one she didn’t deserve.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lazily, she kicked open one of the shattered boxes, parts for semi-automatics tumbled out onto the floor, rattling as the plastic hit the concrete. Stooping to pick up a large heavy clip, she flipped it end over end in one hand, the other shoved in a pocket, unconcerned with the man trying to slide away from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no.” While the clip was in the air she flicked her fingers and sent a pile of boxes into the path he was trying to use to run. “You’re not going anywhere.” She grinned, showing more teeth than she needed to. “You and I are-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blood fountained out the side of Daly’s head out of nowhere. A plume of wood exploded out the of the side of one of the few intact crates, showing the final trajectory of the bullet that had stolen her prey. She took an instinctive step back, unable to break eye contact as the light went out of the dead man’s eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the hell?” She breathed, finally looking around for whoever had killed him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A single ray of light showed the trajectory of the bullet, the perfect whole in the dirty glass on the side of the building facing the rooftop she hadn’t been waiting on. Someone else was at play and it wasn’t SHIELD, they wouldn’t have taken Daly out, and definitely would have made a play for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Racing out into the hard sunlight, she propelled herself onto the roof. A dark shadow was just disappearing into the stairwell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no you don’t.” There were too many exits for her to cover them all, but she could get to the bottom of the stairs at the same time as him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chasing him she threw herself off the stairs, dropping like a stone. Throwing her hands out at the last second, she changed direction mid-fall and bodily threw herself into him. They both went sprawling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was swinging before she regained her feet. He had training, good training and lots of it. Only her powers and long, relentless training sessions with May kept her from being flattened. When no one came running to investigate the noise, she knew he was alone. Neither of them had any back-up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pushing with almost as much as she could give, she threw him away from her. With a tiny bit of space to breathe and think, she realised she knew his face. The metal arm was a pretty big fucking clue as to who she was fighting as well. Fuck. She was fucked. She as so fucking fucked she couldn’t even see daylight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wouldn’t be the worst way to go, and nothing she didn’t deserve anyway. Seeing Lincoln again, to say sorry, wasn’t the worst thought either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t step back into the fight, waiting for her end to come.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>= + =</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been a clean hit. The woman was powerful, but she was a building away, he would be out of there before she realised what had happened and thought to come after him. It was his first mistake in a long time. He was slipping, he just didn’t know it yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daly had been Hydra before defecting to the Watchdogs when he realised he wasn’t going to move up in the organisation any time soon. That didn’t mean he hadn’t kicked a man while he was down. And he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>liked</span>
  </em>
  <span> kicking the Winter Soldier when he came out of the chair drooling like an imbecile. The clean, quick death by a bullet through the brain had been too nice an end for the man. But he would never stoop to their levels of drawing it out. Making people suffer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Efficiently stowing his rifle, he was across the room and two thirds down the stairs before realising he was being followed. Speeding up, he almost thought he was going to get away. A ripple of air hit him, the force of a moving train knocking him a little silly. It would have knocked out an unenhanced, but it just threw him back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Experience told him she was a fighter, she knew what she was doing, and she should have thrown herself right at him. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction. Instead she stopped, staring at him stunned. And then did the strangest thing, he was left staring right back at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Straightening to her full height, she let her hands fall and closed her eyes. Waiting for the end to come. None of his targets who had ever fought back, had suddenly just stopped fighting, and none of them had had half a chance. She did. Maybe not defeating him, but enough to get away. Enough to hurt him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped as well. There weren’t any orders forcing him to take this life, and no incentive on his own behalf. He didn’t know this woman and had no deadly intent towards her. Also, she had been confronting Daly, taking out his men to inadvertently make it easier to kill the man he had come here for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He left her there, standing blind in the stairwell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eyes adjusting quickly to the bright light, he hurried to the shitty car he had stashed further down the abandoned plot, hidden behind a stack of rotting pallets. It was a rust bucket that was almost as old as he was. Well, no it wasn’t anywhere close to as old as he was, but it looked as old as he felt. That sat better in his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The safehouse he escaped to, after driving in circles and zigzags for three hours to make sure the crazy powered lady hadn’t followed him, looked almost as bad as the car. It barely had running water. And hot water was a far off dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A single mattress shoved in one corner with a pile of blankets and a single pillow was the only furniture. He still felt safer having the flimsy door locked at his back. She would have to come through something to get to him, and the noise and destruction would give him a warning. Shucking off his armour and carefully setting it next to his bed, he washed quickly and dressed in jeans and a light autumn jacket, more to cover his arm than to keep him warm on an already warm day, he left again. Slipping through the shadows in the opposite direction from where he had entered, he circles out a few blocks to one of the many shabby diners in the area.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a chipped mug of coffee and a plate of fries and a thick burger, he sat with his back to the wall and watched the room. Noting every person who entered or exited, letting possible threats jump out, be categorised, and shuffled out of his brain as he ate his dinner. A crackly tv over the other end of the bar was running a 24 hour news channel. It wouldn’t have interested him, except beside the anchor an image of the woman he had been fighting only a few hours earlier had replaced the last story about a landslide in the appalachians. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Turning his attention to the woman, he listened. Just able to hear the report above the clinking of the other diners’ cutlery. It was turned low enough that without the enhancements, he wouldn’t have been able to hear it at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daisy Johnson AKA Quake, the ex-SHIELD agent who has been terrorising Los Angeles and surrounds for the last three months was spotted in Manhattan Beach last night. Residents are warned to be vigilant as she is a known enhanced who has caused untold damage in her numerous attacks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something about that didn’t sound right. Her damage had been contained, directional. And she wasn’t going after civilians, or at least she hadn’t been today. All of the men she had hurt had been asking for it. The blonde anchor has been replaced by a shaky cell phone video of Quake, dressed in head to toe black, outside a bank fighting a group of five men. Four bodyguards and a man in a dark suit. She sent the group slamming into the marble wall of the building, all of them falling to the ground unconscious. Running over, she tied them up, dropped something on the Suit’s chest and disappeared, shooting into the sky and away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Draining his coffee, and wrapping up the second half of the burger, he left. The day had given him a lot to think about.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Daisy stood waiting for death to claim her, only for it to once again pass her by. The air shifted around her. Once again she was alone. Left in the wake of death and destruction that she had caused, or had been caused on her behalf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blinking open her eyes, she saw exactly what she expected to see an empty stairwell. A thick shaft of light showing where the World’s deadliest assassin had disappeared to. She walked away. There was nothing left for her here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Letting the sun burn off the last of the adrenalin, she slipped into her Van 2.0.  The back was set up as half command centre, half sleeping quarters. It was a mess, too little room for too many jobs. But it was hers. Something she could bring with her. Nothing was going to stop her from going after her targets, particularly not having to set up and pack up a motel room every day or two.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was cheaper too. And easier to keep off </span>
  <em>
    <span>everyone’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> radars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t bringing in a salary anymore, the significant chunk she had saved during her time at SHIELD was too easy to track, leaving her with whatever she could scrounge from the Watchdogs, and a few random computer jobs she picked up along the way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Driving away, quickly getting onto a motorway out of town, she started turning over the fight and the reasons for the Winter Soldiers appearance in her mind. The most obvious reason would be that the Watchdogs were linked to Hydra in some way, but that didn’t fit with what she knew of either organisation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Watchdogs were vehemently anti-enhanced, while Hydra would do anything, including manipulate or even create power people, to take over the world. Their endgames didn’t line up and both were too egotistical to accept help from anyone let alone each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So maybe it was an individual, Steven Daly was the obvious target of the assassin as he was the only one he had shot and the Winter Soldier obviously had no intention of killing anyone else. Daly had only appeared in the Watchdogs two months ago, but had been rising quickly. She didn’t know much about him before that, she hadn’t needed to. That had been her mistake. She mentally kicked herself. May would have had her ass for going in without every scrap of intel she could get, which for her was everything down to the guy’s weight at birth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At a random rest stop in the San Bernadino National Forest, she finally stopped. Surrounded by fresh air and towering red-gums, she threw open all of the doors of the van and sat on the tail gate, watching the sunset through the columns of trees. It reminded her of the church the Nuns at Saint Agnes used to drag them to each week with the stone columns marching unmovingly down the aisle. She preferred this to that. There as life here, vibrating wildly in the air and under her skin. There had been no life in the cold stone cathedrals of her childhood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Things were getting too hot in LA. The news stations were splashing her face everywhere. She also didn’t want to have another run in with the Chilled Assassin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Portland was meant to be nice this time of year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>= + =</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Portland was nice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It also had zero criminal underground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seattle proved to be better hunting. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aww The cross border smuggling of all sorts of things used the constant traffic running in both directions and the busy coastline to slip around and under the people that were there to stop all of that from happening. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For six weeks she lost herself in the hunt. Running more Watchdog cells to the ground. She kept as many of them alive as possible, dropping them in front of police stations or custom’s offices with harddrives of evidence and directions to the warehouses they were storing their contraband in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She even managed to save a few people. A woman who had been cornered by the Watchdogs only hours after her world had been rocked by Terragenisis, and a father and son who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being able to help without getting anyone killed lifted some of the weight. Not all of it, nothing except Lincoln and so many others coming back to life that were only dead because of her would take the weight from her shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it was a candle in the evernight that she was soaking herself in. Sitting on the roof of the building she had been parked her van in. The sun was setting over the city, for once the ever present rain had shifted letting red shafts of light strike through. The chill of autumn was quickly taking hold and she was seriously considering a run south to escape the coming cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who are you?” A gravelly voice asked from behind her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Without the vibrations that had given away his presence, she would have had no idea he was there, which would have ended messily. Most likely for her, either by jumping so bad she fell off the roof or because she tried to attack him and lost. Badly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one.” She answered honestly, a shrill voice inside of her that sounded a lot like Coulson shouted that that wasn’t the answer he was looking for and she knew it. But what answer was he looking for? Why was he here in Seattle? Nothing she had read or heard suggested that Hydra had ever been in the area.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Being no one is easier.” He agreed. Moving out of the shadow, he settled onto the edge of the roof, close but not too close.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you here?” She asked eventually as the stars started to triumph against the setting sun. She hurried on before he could take that the wrong way. “It’s just that there isn’t any Hydra in the area.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shrugged. “But there is in White Horse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As in Canada?” And if he was going there, why was he here?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shrugged again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then it clicked. Why he would be here. Why he would be sitting on a roof in Seattle with a woman who tried to kill him last time they saw each other. The only time they saw each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He needed help.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You want some company?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hydra wasn’t generally her target, but she was always happy to fuck up their day when an opportunity presented itself. And it would be pretty fucking hard for her to get the Winter Soldier killed. That would be nice. To not have to worry about someone close to her getting killed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was silent long enough that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Eventually though a quiet sure floated on into the night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>= + =</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turned out he didn’t really have a way to get to Canada, so it was lucky she had invited herself along. Or that he had searched her out to give her an opportunity to invite herself along. Either way a day later she was crossing the border. Barnes, the only name he had offered when she had asked what to call him, had jumped out of the van five miles back and said he would find her on the other side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she had known that was what he was going to do, she would have fabricated him some papers to go along with her own absolutely fake passport. If she had made him a passport and he had still decided to sneak across the border, she would have been the offended. As it was, she was just grumpy that he hadn’t said anything until he was literally jumping out of her moving vehicle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Having to make nice with the border guards just aggravated her further and by the time he was slinking out of the shadows at the first rest stop past the busy border, she was about ready to kill the next person who looked at her funny.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sensing her mood, he slipped into the passenger’s side seat and sat quietly as she pulled back out into the light traffic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sat in stony silence of until they were well past Hope, the town not the emotion. Although that wasn’t too far from the truth either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know why I am angry at the world, but why are you?” His voice startled her, she jerked the wheel violently, but kept them on the road.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words wanted to tumble out of her mouth, the quiet cab almost like the confessionals from St Agnes’. But she bit them back, they were her burden to bear. And he had enough of his own. Too many.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The world was angry at me first.” She said instead. The pain of Lincoln, and Cal, and even Jaiying were her’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His huff of laughter was cracked and broken. “Yeah, I know how that goes doll.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At Cache Creek, she had to pull off. Exhaustion was pulling at her eyes and she was more likely to get them killed then anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If it had just been her, she would have rolled herself into a blanket burrito in the back of the van and slept, but that wasn’t an option with two of them. A scuzzy roadside motel it was then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A shower would be nice, it had been a while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>= + =</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A long shower, and an even longer sleep saw her stretching awake just after dawn. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but Barnes sitting in a chair pulled up to the window with a rifle in his lap wasn’t it. Who did he think was going to come after them in a town with a population less than a thousand?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Barnes?” She pushed out of the bed, preparing to attack or defend as needed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t verbally respond, but his head tilted a tiny amount in her direction. She could feel the shift in his attention in the tense vibrations that were almost shimmering in the air around him. His vibrations also weren’t the same as last night, he had made himself smaller somehow, but more dangerous. Her powers called a sharp warning that this wasn’t the same person. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there someone out there?” She tried again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Okay then. If he wasn’t attacking, she would leave him to it and wait for whatever was going on to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to get some food. I’ll bring you something back.” She guessed he wouldn’t want to be out in a crowd at the moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded understanding, his fingers relaxing and tightening on the pistol grip in succession, starting from the pinky and working his way up the hand and then starting the process on the other side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The diner was directly across the road from the motel, and she ordered a serve of pancake, a serve of bacon, eggs, and all the sides along with two coffees. Barnes hadn’t of moved since she left the motel room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They ate breakfast in uncomfortable silence. The few attempts she made at conversation were met with blank eyes silence. The food was good and plentiful if you weren’t enhanced, but she knew her body would burn through the calories in a couple of hours and she guessed he would be the same if not worse. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As they quickly packed up the room and hustled out to the van she tried again. “We can stop in an hour or two to pick up more food. Probably not a bad idea to do a couple of shops before we get there. Avoid suspicion.” She had to stop herself from continuing to babble.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This was sufficient.” He said, still without looking me in the eye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knew something wasn’t right, he wasn’t usually the most verbosity person but he did at least look at her when he did speak. She wouldn’t push, better to give him time to figure out whatever was going on in his head. She knew she didn’t like it when people tried to force her to engage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He ate what she put in front of him two towns over, and didn’t protest when she stopped three times in four hours to load up on groceries that would keep without refrigeration and didn’t need to be cooked before they could be eaten. Which left them with about the unhealthiest, processed crap the stores had, but it would keep them going.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stopping again just after crossing the border from British Columbia to Yukon, she found another tiny roadside motel. As she wrapped herself in her slightly musty blankets, she realised he had only said three words to her all day. Not knowing him well enough to know if that was normal or not, she decided to just wait and see what happened.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry this is a few days late. I was a bridesmaid for one of my best friends on Saturday and was busy with wedding prep.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The last time he remembered having someone to rely on, a friend or a team mate not a handler giving orders, he remembered the cars being different and the blood thicker in his nose as a group of men he knew he should be able to name cut their way through countries he knew he had barely been able to name even back when he knew who he was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was too much for his fractured mind, and as he slipped back into Daisy’s van just north of the US-Canada border, he could feel the numb assassin creeping back into his main, taking control away from the broken man who couldn’t even stand the sound of his own name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Approaching a basically unknown woman for help had used up the last of the energy he normally used to keep control away from the Asset. Part of him was scared to lose the control for the first time, this time Daisy would be the one to get hurt instead of whoever he was going after. Particularly because while he knew she could protect herself, their last fight told him she might not. That she was about as self destructive and almost looking for a way to get herself killed as long as she could take as many enemies with her as he was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop the Asset from taking over, and so just whispered a silent plea that he would see her as an ally and not a threat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>= + =</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They knew where they were. Waking in a new place after having re-aquired control after seceding it to the Other, was always accompanied by complete knowledge of where they were and what they were doing. They also know who was with them, and how the Other felt about them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daisy was new.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People were always enemies, handlers, or unimportant. She didn’t fit into any of the categories and he had no orders to follow. She wasn’t to be obeyed like a handler was, although could if what she asked didn’t make her an enemy or unimportant they supposed. Enemies were to be eliminated, normally a handler assigned the enemies but lated the Other had and that had been okay. Finally unimportant. Unimportant were ignored unless they got in their way and then they became enemies and were to be eliminated. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was new.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They didn’t like new.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>New was different and didn’t have orders associated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The food dropped in front of them nudged her slightly closer to handler, they were responsible for care and maintenance of the Asset. Some were betters than others. The offer of more was another new thing that he didn’t have an order for. This was sufficient. So they told her so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stilled when she turned unhappy eyes on them. Unhappy handlers mostly lashed out, regardless of why they were unhappy. Instead she signed almost imperceptibly and left him alone. Disappointment without anger or punishment was new. But not bad new.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe new wasn’t the worst thing in the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They settled in to watch and wait. As long as they were still heading in the direction they wanted to go, and she did nothing to push herself out of New and into Enemy, she would never be unimportant, they would stay with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was enlightening. Watching her plan for their mission. Supplying them better for a few days than they normally had for just themselves for two weeks. They wanted to say something, for the first time protest at the actions of another that were going to affect them. They even thought she wouldn’t punish them for protesting, but they didn’t want to inspire that same small disappointed sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>= + =</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Long hours in the van without the need to make any decisions or the need to fear the explosive anger of those around them, gave them time to think. They had not had a handler for two years and had survived. Even, maybe, better? Part of them flinched away from the thought. But the Other didn’t. He stood in front of it and defended it. Pushed back against the parts that wanted to shove it behind the wall they had constructed in their mind to be able to forget and survive, protect themselves from the chair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Other argued that there was no chair any more. No one to put them in it either. That they didn’t need to forget to survive, and maybe remembering was even better. They didn’t believe him, but listening was opening the door for pain anymore so he wasn’t worth fighting. Not yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stopping only a few hours short of their target galled them. It wasn’t how this worked. They drove themselves into the ground until the mission was complete. Until they were tired and gave way to the Other, who then used his energy to find their next target. Rinse and repeat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Settling into a chair beside the window they turned half their mind to watching for enemies approaching the room, approaching the sleeping woman behind him. The rest of their mind turned all of the new things over. Testing them against the long, long list of orders that had been embedded painfully into their brain over searing years. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They would wait they decided. See how the mission turned out and whether Daisy turned on them. If the former went well and the latter didn’t happen, they would consider staying. Finding a place for the New in the hierarchy of others in their mind.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm having a very minor surgery tomorrow, so I am posting a day early rather than risking completely forgetting. I hope you enjoy!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Rolling out of bed hours before dawn, which this far north this late in the year wasn’t exactly early, Daisy shuffled sleepily through her morning routine and headed for the van. It was only as they headed towards the car, another five odd hours of driving with another few more of internet snooping ahead that she stopped to think.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Could Barnes’ drive?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, can you drive?” She held up the keys in a needless symbol of the question she was asking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just looked at her long enough that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. But just as she was going to drop her hand and climb into the driver’s seat, like she should have just done in the first place, he nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great. You can drive then, I want to get a start on the spying part of this job.” She threw the keys at him, which he caught easily, and climbed into the back of the van instead of the front.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Better not to give him a choice. The gamble paid off as a few minutes later Barnes tried to get into the seat and got stuck between the seat and the wheel. It was pushed far enough forward for her, a woman almost six inches shorter, to be able to reach. She was also about half his weight, her strength wrapped up in her DNA, while his was in muscle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stiffling a giggle, she left him to struggle with shoving everything into a new orientation that would work for him. Logging on and finding a satellite feed that she could piggyback off to do her searches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Excellent, Stark’s new satellite was not too far off perfectly placed. It was harder to get into than an NSA or CSS one would be, but would be loaded with so much more cool shit. And probably be faster to work with. The first hour, maybe two she wasn’t sure, of the drive into the slowly lightening morning was lost getting past Stark’s security without setting off any alarms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey Barnes, do you have more exact coordinates then middle of fucking nowhere Yukon?” She called into the main cab, not taking her eyes off her screens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“60.897290, -134.317771” He rattled off without a pause.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Okay then…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling up the maps she found the point he was talking about. “About 45 kilometers North East as the crow flies from White Horse?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Righty-o then. The next however long was spent nudging things here and there to get it into a better position over the area just outside of WhiteHorse and set it to recording. Using a few tricks and programs she had learnt from or developed for SHIELD to analyse the information without having to do it all herself. A day or two to gather information, and get the lay of the land should give them what they needed if Barnes himself couldn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How you going?” She asked pushing through the little curtain and dropped herself into the passenger seat, turning her attention to Barnes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Responsibly, he kept his eyes on the road. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay to keep driving? Or did you want me to take over.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He still kept his eyes on te road.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, no problem. Let me know if you need a break.” She didn’t think he would, but had to make the offer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the rest of the drive, which turned out to only be about twenty minutes, she watched him watch the road. It gave her time to think. The man who had sat at the window when she woke up the day before, and again last night wasn’t the same man as the one who had approached her in Seattle. She wasn’t sure which one she had fought in Los Angeles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Ward, knowing her team was probably more important than knowing her enemies. She had to trust that he would have her back when everything went to shit, and to do that, seh needed to know who she was dealing with. And in 36 hours his vibrations had settled back into the patterns she had come to associated with the man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not Barnes are you?” She asked softly, turning her own eyes to the road, the only option she had to reduce the pressure on him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Out of the very corner of her eye, she could see him narrow his eyes. Whether in thought or pain she couldn’t tell. Probably both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” He said. The word an exhalation more than a sound. It was sure though. Sure of who he was, and who he wasn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who are you then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The asset.” He answered quicker this time, and louder. At normal conversational levels, maybe a bit louder to combat the growl of the van’s engine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not a name, that’s a role, or a title or something.” She protested. This was something she knew about, names were important. They told the world who you were and who you weren’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then I don’t have one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t sound like he cared. It was a simple statement of fact. That didn’t mean it wasn’t sad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should choose one.” She said simply. She had done it before, when she didn’t know who she was. And in the end it had helped her find who she was always meant to be. Maybe it would do the same for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know any.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the first time since the Asset had arrived that he had said something without being asked or prompted first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a whole internet of weird and wonderful names. Although I suggest you run anything by me. Just to make sure it isn’t some fucked up modern…” She let the sentence trail off, not even sure herself where it was going. He shouldn’t have to check with her, or anyone, on any name he wanted to give himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whitehorse was both exactly like she was expecting, and nothing like it at the same time. Bigger than a town this far north had any right to be and it cut a grey swathe of concrete along both shores of a crystal blue river. But it was nestled in a valley with dark green forests on either side. A mix of civilisation and nature that should have been jarring, but worked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A motel on the edge of town suited them perfectly. Not on the same road they followed in, but not too far off it. Each of the rooms opened right onto the carpark, giving them privacy without being locked into a building they couldn’t control the entries and exits of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had a hiking pack in the back, but he didn’t. One of them would have to go out and pick up some equipment for him because she sure as shit wasn’t going to carry everything both of them would need for multiple days in the middle of nowhere.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That night, after she had ventured into town for his gear and food, he tried to pull a chair up beside the window to keep watch. For the third night in a row.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can take watch.” She pulled her own chair up, a laptop sitting on the seat. She could keep working on the data gathering while also sending her vibrational senses out to track everyone who came into her range. “Go sleep.” She ordered when it didn’t look like he was going to move.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That got him moving, carefully placing his chair back at the little table, exactly square to the tabletop and equidistant from each corner. She had noticed that before, that Barnes was a little less exact in his movements while the Asset (she still thought he needed an actual name because she wasn’t going to call him the Asset to his face) with unnaturally attention to detail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lay down with the same precision. Flat on his back on the top of the blanket with his limbs dead straight. It did not look comfortable. But she had pushed him as far as she could and left him to it.</span>
</p>
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